The Pallet Rack & Material Handling News

Lincoln Poultry, a complete food service distributor, had outgrown its main distribution center and various satellite sites spread out over Lincoln, Nebraska. To improve distribution efficiency, accuracy and service to customers on more than 8,000 items required consolidating distribution in a larger, single location with a state-of-the-art pallet rack system.

 

The company purchased an existing food service distribution facility and began optimizing its design layout with the help of Lift Solutions, a full service material handling distributor/integrator. 

 

"We're hard on racks," says Neal Lyons, Lincoln Poultry's CFO. "With the equipment we're using, racks get beat up, especially around the legs."

 

"We needed a high capacity, high strength rack system able to withstand inevitable fork truck impacts with minimal maintenance," explains Lyons. "To suit our product range and give options if our product mix changes, we needed a versatile rack with flexibility in beam size and placement."

 

On Lift Solutions' recommendation, the company turned to the SK3000 pallet rack, a rugged bolted rack with structural channel columns, by Steel King, a leading manufacturer of storage rack and material handling products.

 

While on-site ship dates helped Lincoln Poultry meet its distribution center opening deadline, a number of rack features helped the company meet its strength, durability, maintenance and versatility goals.

 

Compared to typical racking, the SK3000 pallet rack, constructed of hot-rolled structural channel column with full horizontal-diagonal bracing, offers greater frame strength, durability and cross-sectional area. All grade-5 hardware provides greater shear strength, and a heavy 7-gauge wrap-around connector plate ensures a square and plumb installation with a tighter connection and greater moment resistance.

 

For added protection against fork truck impact, Lift Solutions recommended and Steel King provided a 72" reinforced front column for each frame/upright, heavy horizontals, and a bullnose angle column protector.

 

"We spend virtually no time repairing rack legs, fixing rack ends, or stringing beams like we did at our old facilities," says Lyons. We're realizing substantial savings in uptime and reduced maintenance."

 

A few features of the SK3000 pallet rack provide both strength and flexible rack configuration such as a choice of 3", 4" or 5" channel columns with single or double reinforcements; and a secure, adjustable bolted beam connection with two bolts per beam end, creating greater moment capacity and 57% more strength than single bolt design. Upright columns are punched at 4' vertical centers, while beam connectors are specially punched to allow 2" beam adjustability for more efficient use of storage space.

 

"The flexible design of the rack allowed us to create pick slots for each of our items, increasing our pick accuracy and efficiency," says Lyons. "Due to the rack and other improvements, we've cut pick errors in half. We've also boosted pick efficiency by four cases an hour, which translates into $50,000 in annual savings."

 

Of benefit to Lincoln Poultry's food service customers is the rack's continuously welded, one-piece construction, which unlike typical racks, has no ledge to catch pallets, trap dirt or debris. "The seamless construction improves food safety and distribution efficiency," says Lyons.

 

Since the rack is powder coated rather than painted with enamel, it's 94% more resistant to chips and scratches. A choice of 12 standard colors makes color-coding by use or inventory type easy.

 

To further improve material handling safety and efficiency, Lincoln Poultry chose to powder coat the rack beams orange and upright/cross members dark green. "Since the contrasting colors are easier for forklift operators to see, they help with safe product put away and retrieval from a slot," says Lyons.

 

"We've optimized distribution to our food service customers with the pallet rack strength, durability and adjustability, along with other facility improvements," concludes Lyons. "That helps our customers get the right products at the right time and price, so they can best serve their customers and grow their businesses."

 

For more info on optimizing distribution with a warehouse/pallet rack system, contact Donald Heemstra at Steel King, 2700 Chamber St., Stevens Point, WI 54481; call 800-826-0203; email: dheemstra@steelking.com or visit the website www.steelking.com.

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